[From a press release]
January 12, 2009 – The Glens Falls Martin Luther King Day Committee announced today that the 2009 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Commemoration will be held Sunday, January 18, 2009 in Glens Falls.
The keynote speaker will be the Reverend Doctor Glorya Askew, currently serving as the Ministerial Program Coordinator for Ministerial and Family Services with the Department of Correctional Services. For 28 years, Reverend Askew has served as chaplain at four correctional facilities, the last, Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, is the only maximum security facility for women in New York. Dr. Askew has co-edited two books entitled, Reclamation of Black Prisoners: A Challenge to the African American Churches and From Prison Cell to Church Pew: The Strategy of the African American Church.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most important leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in America. Dr. King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, helped to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech during the March on Washington in 1963. Dr. King vociferously opposed the Viet Nam War and became the youngest person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Price. He was assassinated forty years ago this April 4 while in Memphis, Tennessee, to support striking black sanitary public works employees, represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Dr. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter in 1977.
Martin Luther King Day was established as a national holiday in the United States in 1986, but it wasn’t until 2000 that all 50 states officially observed the holiday for the first time. Before 2000 the holiday was not observed by New Hampshire, Arizona, or South Carolina and in Virginia, the holiday was added on to Lee-Jackson Day, a day meant to honor confederate generals, and became Lee-Jackson-King Day. Although the day is now a universally celebrated federal and state holiday, it is usually not observed by American corporations.
The event will begin at 3:30 pm on the steps of Glens Falls City Hall with remarks from local politicians, including Glens Falls Mayor Jack Diamond and State Senator Betty Little. At 4 pm, following their brief remarks, marchers will proceed to Christ Church at 54 Bay Street where a public program celebrating the life, work, and message of Dr. King will be held beginning at 4:30 pm.
The public event at Christ Church will feature the Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church Choir, the Christ Church United Methodist choir and the keynote speech by Dr. Glorya Askew. There will be a reception with free baked goods and beverages to follow. The Glens Falls chapter of the NAACP will be collecting non-perishable food items to be donated to local food pantries, as a community service project in honor of Dr. King’s call to action. You are encouraged to bring a non-perishable food item to the event.
Update: Adirondack Almanack reports that the town of Johnsburg will also have an event in honor of Dr. King.
4 comments:
When will the organizers of MLK Day celebrations in Glens Falls stop including politicians who oppose the closing of local prisons, support barbaric wars on nonexistent crime and drug problems, inspire hate for immigrants, and attack and kill people of color in foreign lands?
As long as there are people who hold responsibility for outrageously racist policies on the Glens Falls program - I won't attend MLK Day events in Glens Falls. And I'll encourage others to boycott as well.
Tell us organizers - what does Betty Little have to do with MLK, beside the fact that her policies imprison African Americans in large numbers and keep them locked up in our neighborhood and MLK had been to jail? Tell us, what does Betty Little tink about the excessive use of tazers in Glens Falls?
The organizers should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating the "Betty's just a nice lady" voter apathy.
And don't give us that garbage about the spirit of Martin. Martin wasn't a pussy, he challenged the Betty Littles of this world, he didn't invite them to further their racist, militaristic, jingoistic, and classist prison military industrial complex.
Well, as a principal organizer, I find John Warren's general lack of interest in participating (when he clearly has such strong and negative feelings) quite hypocritical but I can write it off as armchair criticism. John, if you want to make MLK Day the activist holiday it should be, show up and do the work and make it so! I have done my bit and fought my battles to make sure it continues here. Where have you been? I brought the peace movement and the Green Party to MLK Day. I brought Sanctuary for Indie Media and two of their anti-war films, I had members from Veterans for Peace and Alice Green speak, I had Bob Dylan sung in church, I paid to print up "Letters from the Birmingham Jail" and "Beyond Vietnam" to give away .... where have you been for all of that? Not here. That's for sure. Stop whining and bring your inactive activist ass down here to help organize next year's event if you're so concerned. Talk is cheap, my friend. DO something.
Well Matt. If you want to make it personal, that's too bad. I won't give you a refresher on my work over the last 20 years for social justice. Your argument is spurious. The question is not why isn't John Warren working on the Glens Falls MLK Day events anymore, although I think I've made the answer to that clear a long time ago.
The question is, why do the organizers of Glens Falls MLK Day allow a platform for politicians who "oppose the closing of local prisons, support barbaric wars on nonexistent crime and drug problems, inspire hate for immigrants, and attack and kill people of color in foreign lands?"
That's the question.
There is a community of people who celebrate MLK Day in Glens Falls and I work with THESE people to organize this day, not with people from communities far away who don't attend these events and just pass judgment on everyone else.
We have been through this before, John. The NAACP wants Betty Little there. She will be there. She is not speaking at the church. She is speaking at City Hall briefly and unofficially.
We could organize an alternate activist MLK Day (as I have done twice on my own) but I know the impetus to get the work done will fall almost entirely on my shoulders (and I am pretty freaking busy these days raising two kids, running two businesses and working on Single Payer).
We would need to find a venue besides the theater because it is now always "busy" for this holiday every year (I check). I would have to pay for the new venue because, while they will volunteer to help out, the activist community here is awfully good at sayin' they just can't spare any coin right now.
I am not making this personal, John, but my argument is not spurious. YOU haven't participated so don't be so damn judgmental. I seem to remember a famous picture of Martin with Lyndon "Baby Killer" Johnson signing the Civil Rights Bill. In your angry world, does this make Martin Luther King a sellout?
Betty Little is speaking at City Hall for about a minute just like she does every freaking year. Get over it! Life is messy. A perfect tribute to Martin will take place at your house, I'm sure. But, how many people will you be getting your message out to by preaching to the converted (and only three of them)?
Martin was, first and foremost, a preacher. He spent time with people he disagreed with every single day and he worked to CHANGE THEIR MINDS about things they all believed strongly. I will let that course be my guide as well. It seems wiser (and perhaps more productive) than damning your friends and telling them they are pussies and that they're not as perfect as you are.
I have always disagreed with you about some things, John, but that has never meant that I hate you, that I wouldn't break bread with you or that I wouldn't want to hear what you have to say. Maybe you need to find a way to communicate with Betty Little and Jack Diamond about how flawed you find their thinking to be.
All I know is that my method of working within the community that is actually here will allow me that exact opportunity on Sunday (to talk to both of these politicians directly) while your method will allow you to stay home cursing everyone for being so damned stupid.
Which avenue do you think Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King would have pursued if he were here today?
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